Day One
The next three days had been planned with military precision. Heck I'd even checked the weather forecast. Given the possibility of snow I decided that being over prepared would be better than under hence the Sambas were packed. The Vee Double Yuh Up had been booked. This should be a piece of cake.
6:10 a.m Alarm goes off
7:30 a.m the clan are all in the car washed and fed and on our way to the grandparents.
7:33 a.m Back to the house for the missing Lightening McQueen duvet and a Bucket o Soldiers. Uh oh. The wheels have come off already - bit of a spoiler in the title though
From here on it went fairly well apart from eating the most disgusting scrambled eggs I've ever had in Bristol Airport.
The route we took was the A9 up until the other side of Loch Fleet; the A839 to Lairg and then the A836 all the way to Tongue. Euro Car were very efficient. The Up was upgraded to an all singing, all dancing Volvo V60/70 D5 estate which had a surprising amount of poke and was extremely fuel efficient. Anyone taking this route should be aware that there wasn't a single greasy spoon along the whole length of the journey:-C
The weather was a mixture of heavy showers inter spaced with short dry spells and very blustery. As such I saw little value in scanning Cromarty Firth as the water was so choppy. We were able to add Common Gull however to the year list. A couple of Common Buzzards were close to the road but not much else. At Loch Fleet there were a decent amount of Eider, Goosander and Mergansers.
A few feral goats were alongside the A839 along with various thrushes, pipits etc.
At Loch Shin a few Swallows were skimming the water but the weather was not being helpful at all. Some Red Deer grazed in the fields at Altnaharra and there were heaps of Common Sandpipers alongside Loch Loyal. On arrival at Tongue the weather had broken sufficiently for us to stretch our legs by Talmine. This is a stunning area and was somewhere I always hoped to revisit. There was a solitary Sandwich Tern fishing the bay (year tick #2) and a Gannet further out (#3). A few Wheatears were around the beach along with some wagtails. Also a probable Merlin flew away over the hill but it was one of those views out of the corner of your eye where it's hard to be 100% certain.
Returning to the Tongue Hotel we stopped to scan the Kyle of Tongue and picked up Curlew, Redshank, Oystercatcher, Bonxie (#3), Red Throated Divers (#4) and Hooded Crow (#5).
The hotel itself was very comfortable. I can recommend the scallops and the Venison. In the room I reflected upon how much I enjoyed driving the Volvo and even thought the complimentary Sherry was palatable.............................. I went straight downstairs and had a couple of Jose Cuervos and pints of Bitter to bring me back to being 42 and not 142!:-O
I'll do day 2 tomorrow along with a couple of shockingly bad photos as I'm writing this from my I Pad. I also need an ID on a mammal if anyone can help?
TBC when I've had some sleep.
Rich
The next three days had been planned with military precision. Heck I'd even checked the weather forecast. Given the possibility of snow I decided that being over prepared would be better than under hence the Sambas were packed. The Vee Double Yuh Up had been booked. This should be a piece of cake.
6:10 a.m Alarm goes off
7:30 a.m the clan are all in the car washed and fed and on our way to the grandparents.
7:33 a.m Back to the house for the missing Lightening McQueen duvet and a Bucket o Soldiers. Uh oh. The wheels have come off already - bit of a spoiler in the title though
From here on it went fairly well apart from eating the most disgusting scrambled eggs I've ever had in Bristol Airport.
The route we took was the A9 up until the other side of Loch Fleet; the A839 to Lairg and then the A836 all the way to Tongue. Euro Car were very efficient. The Up was upgraded to an all singing, all dancing Volvo V60/70 D5 estate which had a surprising amount of poke and was extremely fuel efficient. Anyone taking this route should be aware that there wasn't a single greasy spoon along the whole length of the journey:-C
The weather was a mixture of heavy showers inter spaced with short dry spells and very blustery. As such I saw little value in scanning Cromarty Firth as the water was so choppy. We were able to add Common Gull however to the year list. A couple of Common Buzzards were close to the road but not much else. At Loch Fleet there were a decent amount of Eider, Goosander and Mergansers.
A few feral goats were alongside the A839 along with various thrushes, pipits etc.
At Loch Shin a few Swallows were skimming the water but the weather was not being helpful at all. Some Red Deer grazed in the fields at Altnaharra and there were heaps of Common Sandpipers alongside Loch Loyal. On arrival at Tongue the weather had broken sufficiently for us to stretch our legs by Talmine. This is a stunning area and was somewhere I always hoped to revisit. There was a solitary Sandwich Tern fishing the bay (year tick #2) and a Gannet further out (#3). A few Wheatears were around the beach along with some wagtails. Also a probable Merlin flew away over the hill but it was one of those views out of the corner of your eye where it's hard to be 100% certain.
Returning to the Tongue Hotel we stopped to scan the Kyle of Tongue and picked up Curlew, Redshank, Oystercatcher, Bonxie (#3), Red Throated Divers (#4) and Hooded Crow (#5).
The hotel itself was very comfortable. I can recommend the scallops and the Venison. In the room I reflected upon how much I enjoyed driving the Volvo and even thought the complimentary Sherry was palatable.............................. I went straight downstairs and had a couple of Jose Cuervos and pints of Bitter to bring me back to being 42 and not 142!:-O
I'll do day 2 tomorrow along with a couple of shockingly bad photos as I'm writing this from my I Pad. I also need an ID on a mammal if anyone can help?
TBC when I've had some sleep.
Rich
